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Dragonet
A fanfiction by Artidraguck. Part I A sack of coins bounced gently against my side. I ran, my talons thudding heavily against the road. I weaved about the ramshackle buildings of the Scorpion Den. I heard the shouts of my chasers behind me, yelling at dragons to move. "Where is that nasty little dragonet?" Cereus roared. "I will have his head!" My heart thumped loudly in my chest. I ducked behind a stall, scattering at least half of the many coins in the purse into an obvious alley. I spread my wings and lept into the air, trusting the dragons around me that they wouldn't reveal where I had gone, as most dragons hated Cereus and loved to see him mad. I flapped my wings furiously, wanting to get to the cloth awnings before Cereus and his goons noticed where I had gone. The wind whistled through the tear in my wing as I made it onto the fabric. Just in time, as Cereus yelled: "There! The nasty little slack-jawed lizard dropped some money!" I froze, clutching the bag to my chest, shielding the precious few coins left. I wouldn't want my moving to reveal my location to jackal-faced Cereus. A creak came from below me. The cloth began to sag more dramatically. I felt my heart begin to beat even faster. A horrible ripping sound came from below me, and I violently flung myself skyward. I beat my wings against the moving air, the warm and cold drafts making me rise. The smell of sand hung heavy. I felt grains of it ripple over my scales as I flew quietly to Monitor's house. The outraged roars of dragons who know their prey have escaped them came from behind me, as I flew over the Scorpion Den towards the house and the brown cloud on the horizon. A bolt of fear struck me. Brown cloud? Warm and cool air currents banging together? Sand in the air? Oh no... "SANDSTORM!" a frantic dragon in the streets below screamed, quickly followed by the sound of other dragons echoing his roar across the city. Slamming shudders followed all of the yells. I dove to the ground, charging into the last open home. I slammed the door behind me, locking it tightly. The house had no windows, but the door hung loosely on its hinges. I was pushed out of the way as another dragon began to frantically stack books upon books in front of the door. I was appalled. Who in their right mind would stack books in front of a door? "Help me stack these books!" My storm partner yelled. "What? No!" I said incredulously. "Why would I want to put books into the face of a merciless storm?" "Do you want to be buried alive?" The dragon roared. Violent gusts of wind began to fling themselves through the cracks in the door, bringing with them stinging, flying sand. It lashed my scales, worming beneath them and pricking my tender skin beneath, threatening to tug my stolen bag of coins out into the fierce storm. I picked up a book. ...... The book stack was finished. A small pile of sand had managed to get inside before we were done, but besides that everything was okay. My stolen pouch was still safe, and I had shaken out the sand from my scales. I finally took the time to look around at the place where I would be stuck for the next few hours. It was a small, run-down studio. It was thin, with the back fourth blocked off for cooking and the front part set up for eating, sleeping, and chilling. The walls were made from sandstone. The floors were hard-packed sand and dirt. A few threadbare rugs were placed over the ground in the front. A small cot was against one of the walls, and there were three rough pillows on the other side. Stacks of books were piled everywhere, making the already cramped space seem even smaller. There were no windows, the only light coming from a little hanging torch dangling from the middle of the dusty ceiling. I looked over to my storm partner, or as I referred to her, Book-strangler. I was surprised. In the confusion of preparing for the storm, I somehow didn’t bother to notice that she was a NightWing, except with SandWing colored scales. She was a hybrid. ”Thank you for helping me.” she smiled at me. “Sorry about being so brisk with you earlier. My name is Jackrabbit.” “My name is Camel,” I said, still staring at her scales. She followed my gaze. “Oh, yeah.” Jackrabbit shrugged. “I’m half NightWing. Surprise!” "I'm transgender. I go by they and them. Surprise." I said dryly, fully expecting her to be rude to me. But instead, she looked sad. "Yeah, we all have something that dragons are mean to us about," Jackrabbit shook her head, her tongue flickering in and out of her mouth. "I will never understand how hate appeals to dragons." "Would you ever change who you are to avoid the hate?" I asked her. "Never!" She cried. "Would you? Would you give in to them and change your whole identity to appease the wants a few dung-brained frog-licking jackals?" "No," I replied. "I'm proud of who I am." Jackrabbit nodded once, sharply. "As you should be." She wandered off into the cooking area. She lifted a dented and rusty teapot. "Now, would you like some cactus tea?" ...... Hours later, the howling wind outside began to die down, bringing with it a great sense of relief. I lifted one of the books carefully from the door frame, peering over a little under a floor's worth of solid sand. Brown and gold waves filled the streets, thick swaths of sand laying atop the awnings of stalls. Several of them were ripped, their wares covered in more sand. There were already a couple of tunnels crossing the sand. I slowly began to unpile more books. Sand trickled in from the empty spaces, and Jackrabbit rushed over with a basket that she had been storing books in to catch it. The basket soon filled up, and she ran to grab another. We continued like this for several minutes in silence, until Jackrabbit said, "Do you have a home?" I nodded. "Good." We lapsed back into silence. Eventually, we had taken out all of the books. I slid the door open cautiously and was faced with a sloping wall of sand. I climbed up it, slipping and sliding. I got the top of the mound and looked back at Jackrabbit. She sat in the doorway, hugging her wings around herself. "I'm sorry," I said to her. "But I have to go." She looked up and smiled sadly. "It was nice meeting you." She replied. I took a few hesitant steps away, not sure if I wanted to leave this sad, lonely dragon in favor of my mean mother, Monitor. Jackrabbit noticed my hesitation and flicked her claws at me. "Shoo. I'll be fine, I promise. And," She smiled. "you can always visit me anytime you like." I grinned in return and pushed myself skyward to Monitor, to the dusty rooftops, to the desert sky, and to whatever lay beyond. I soared through the sky, gently floating on the wind. The entirety of the Scorpion Den lay beneath me, buried in the sand. Colorful squares of cloth poked out tentatively from it, and spires and buildings soared up from the ground. I tilted my wings toward a small, insignificant sandstone building that the whole Scorpion Den knew about, although they all pretended like they didn't. I landed in front of it. One of the windows on the top floor was open, the door having been buried by the sand. I poked my head tentatively through it, seeing that my mother wasn't in the living quarters up here. I carefully slid into the house. I was in my mother's room, which took up most of the floor. The walls were decorated lavishly with tapestries, and piles of rigs carpeted the palm wood floor. Lots of little bulbs, their wicks lit with tiny dots of flame, dangled from the rafters, infusing the whole room with a soft light. Against the wall to the right was a large, low circular bed, padded with soft silk sheets. A little door off to left was my room, a small little area that I had turned into my private haven, filled with books and lit with little strings of yellow, orange, and red glass orbs. I tiptoed through my mother's room and walked quietly down the cold, sandstone stairs. I poked my head around the corner, seeing my mother in the back of the room, which served as her work area. The front of the room was her shop, where she sold poisons, brightsting cactus, and other helpful things for Scorpion Den residents. The store was also a place for assassins (such as my mother) to advertise themselves, on a large corkboard at the front of the room. We owned one of the only true shops in the whole Scorpion Den. My mother looked over at the stairs just as I poked my head around. She scowled fiercely, blowing a small snort of flame from her nose in fury. "WHERE. HAVE YOU BEEN?" Monitor roared at me. "CAMEL!" "Sorry, mother," I hunched my shoulders. "You see, there was this sandstorm and Cereus was chasing me and I had to hide oh and also I stole some money and-" "DOES IT LOOK AS IF CARE ABOUT A SANDSTORM AND CEREUS?" She snatched the pouch of money from me and shoved me in the direction of my room. I hurried off before Monitor could yell at me more. I ran up the stairs, making a beeline to my room and shutting the door behind me. I flopped onto my pile of pillows that served as my bed, already regretting my decision to leave Jackrabbit. I tented my wings around myself, lamenting the loss of the pouch of gold. "Why did Monitor have to take it?" I muttered. I had gone through so much trouble to get it, and Monitor didn't even care. She had stolen it from me! That's the thing, isn't it, I realized. That's it. Monitor doesn't care. But it seems like Jackrabbit does. I jolted up, flaring my wings out and. I had been wrong to come back here. I had to get out of this. I had to leave. I stood up hurriedly, flicking my barb around urgently as I scrambled to find a bag. I came up with a raggedy burlap sack. I quickly piled into it some items. My threadbare blanket, my favorite string of lights, some exceptionally good books, and my prized possession--a small obsidian knife with a black opal embedded in the hilt. (IM WORKING ON IT, GEEZ) Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete) Category:Content (Artidraguck) Category:Fanfictions Category:Work In Progress